If you were studying computers today…
Would you start with the 1984 “Apple II Plus Troubleshooting and Repair Manual”?
Then… why would you learn evolution by reading Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye?
Dawkins’ books on evolution – like those of his pals Bill Nye, Jerry Coyne and others – are every bit as outdated as this computer book.
You may be tempted to doubt me. But don’t take my word for it. In a minute I’m going to show you how to prove this to yourself.
Old-school Neo-Darwinism has been replaced by a new, Post Modern Synthesis. Practicing biologists know this. Only now is the public beginning to hear the truth.
Most folks in 2016 won’t be quite sure what I’m talking about. But everyone will know by 2020.
Message to the current kingpins of popular evolution: The 1980’s version of evolution you evangelize in your books is dead. It’s time to start teaching modern science.
Let’s start with Bill Nye the Science Guy.
| FICTION | FACT | |
| “The remarkable thing about the evolutionary process that produces new species is that it’s brought on by small, random changes in genes.” (Bill Nye, Undeniable) |
Dr. Lynn Margulis (former wife of Carl Sagan) exposes the truth in her book Acquiring Genomes: “Many ways to induce mutations are known but none lead to new organisms. Mutation accumulation does not lead to new species or even to new organs or new tissues . . . Even professional evolutionary biologists are hard put to find mutations, experimentally induced or spontaneous, that lead in a positive way to evolutionary change” (Lynn Margulis, Acquiring Genomes) Margulis showed symbiotic mergers – not accidental mutations – were a major source of new species. This wasn’t theory or conjecture. Symbiogenesis is observable experimental fact. |
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| FICTION | FACT | |
| “The main defense a bacterium has against a phage attack is to somehow modify or reconfigure the protein pattern on its outer membrane. Now, individuals cannot change themselves, as such. Instead, their descendants, their offspring, can have modifications as their DNA is replicated. Random changes may or may not help them resist a phage.” (Bill Nye, Undeniable) | No biologist who knows the current literature would agree with Bill Nye. A bacterium under stress does literally change itself. It re-arranges its own DNA in real time and seeks DNA from other organisms (horizontal gene transfer). By changing its own genome, a bacterium can generate resistance in as little as 30 minutes. | |
| FICTION | FACT | |
| “Mutations are the random changes in genes that constitute the raw material for evolution by non-random selection.” (Richard Dawkins, Greatest Show on Earth) |
Cells militantly guard against random changes in genes! Their first line of defense is the “SOS” response. In SOS mode, cells rush to repair damage from radiation and copying errors. So… where does the raw material for evolution come from, if not from random mutations? Answer: Genes switch on & switch off (epigenetics); rearrange and exchange (transposition and hybridization). Hybrids double (genome duplication); viruses hijack; cells merge (symbiogenesis); and winners emerge (natural selection). Natural selection has no creative juice; it’s only the final eliminating step. |
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| FICTION | FACT | |
| “These mutations occur willy-nilly, regardless of whether they are good or bad for the individual. But it is the filtering of that variation by natural selection that produces adaptations, and natural selection is manifestly not random. It is a powerful molding force, accumulating genes that have a greater chance of being passed on than others…” (Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution Is True) |
Barbara McClintock induced mutations in her corn plants. Yes, those mutations were “willy-nilly” from radiation. But the plants surprised Barabara by repairing their DNA. They moved missing code from elsewhere and built new code. The adaptations were anything but willy-nilly. Her colleagues thought she was crazy. But she won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for discovering DNA transposition. (James Shapiro, Evolution: A View from the 21st Century) |
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| FICTION | FACT | |
| “Living things in nature cannot alter their genes. All organisms – sea anemones, fireflies, giant squid, miniature poodles, and humans – have to play the genetic hand they’re dealt.” (Bill Nye, Undeniable) | Cells cut, splice, and re-arrange their own DNA. Horizontal Gene Transfer (cells exchanging DNA) is so universal, there are no hard limits to where genetic material can come from. Cells re-purpose new genetic material from viruses, bacteria, parasites, and other animals – in hours. (Shapiro, Evolution: A View from the 21st Century) | |
| FICTION | FACT | |
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“Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity” -PZ Myers, from his Pharyngula blog |
“The stimulus associated with placement of the insect egg into the leaf will initiate reprogramming of the plant’s genome, forcing it to make a unique structure adapted to the needs of the developing insect.” -Barbara McClintock, from her Nobel lecture |
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None of their books even pass a basic FACT CHECK from a first-year grad student!
The evolution story fed to the public by Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Bill Nye and PZ Myers pretends the last 30 years of molecular biology never happened.
By the way, most of this is not new. Practicing biologists have been using these tools for decades.
In most topics, errors this large would force a recall by book publishers. Evolutionary biology seems to have lower standards than other fields.
Books like Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker and Selfish Gene and Greatest Show on Earth; Nye’s Undeniable and Coyne’s Why Evolution is True sport a somewhat fictitious and wildly out-of-date version of evolution.
They completely omit the cell’s repair machinery and ability to re-engineer itself. Their explanations are less than 50% accurate (for facts they do present) and leave out the really interesting, useful stuff.
Sort of like a computer book that never mentions the mouse, video or the internet.
Check for yourself. Search Google Books for “hybridization” and “transposition” and “symbiogenesis” and “horizontal gene transfer” in Dawkins’ and Nye’s and Coyne’s books.
Experimental biologists who make antibiotics and develop gene therapies harness these systems all the time. They don’t simply rely on “random mutation and natural selection.” They harness the cell’s built-in systems as much as possible.
The red-hot new CRISPR gene-editing technology is actually humans co-opting the bacterial immune system. The reason we are able to edit genes with such precision now is because we’re hitching a ride with the tools of the Post-Modern Synthesis.
The geocentric view of the universe was once embraced by everyone.
Today it’s an embarrassment.
IBM once reigned as the supreme computer supplier.
How many of your friends today own an IBM?
The taxi industry once dominated in every major city.
Now Uber and Lyft are ripping them to shreds.
Yahoo! was once king of online advertising.
Verizon bought them out for for 1% of the current value of Google.
Memo to Dawkins, Nye, Coyne and Myers:
You’ve missed the biggest story in science. You guys are running on fumes.
Recess is over. If you persist in your 1980s version of evolution – if you do not update your books, your websites and doctrines – you too will be obsolete. And a younger generation of scientists will be all too happy to take your place.
Knowing that we have decades of live, real-time evolutionary experiments that produce new species in the lab and in the wild…
Why aren’t these guys telling you the whole story???
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Download The First 3 Chapters of Evolution 2.0 For Free, Here – https://evo2.org/evolution/Where Did Life And The Genetic Code Come From? Can The Answer Build Superior AI? The #1 Mystery In Science Now Has A $10 Million Prize. Learn More About It, Here – https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0
There was a sour note for me near the start. Is it necessary to mention a woman scientist’s marital history?
I think her association with Carl Sagan is laudatory.
I get that all the things you’ve added are growths in the field of evolutionary studies, but why are you so fierce in your attacks of Nye, Dawkins, and Tyson? If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have a groundwork to build off of, and may of evolution’s staunchest celebrity advocates (ie. Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, etc.) wouldn’t be/have bringing/brought this science to the forefront of the public.
Sorry, Nye, Dawkins, Coyne, and Myers.
Their work is not groundwork. Most of it is fundamentally wrong. Denis Noble of Oxford says, “all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis have been disproved. Moreover, they have been disproved in ways that raise the tantalizing prospect of a totally new synthesis.”
In other words the Dawkins/Coyne version of evolution is more than a little misleading. Much of it is outright wrong – starting with the idea that mutations are “random.” They’re anything but.
If guys who write, for example, Intelligent Design books had 1/10th the factual scientific errors that Dawkins, Coyne and Nye make in their books, the atheists would rain fire and brimstone on them. You wouldn’t hear the end of it.
Good grief! This is a science that is progressing exponentially. Give these guys a break. They performed a major service by bringing the whole world of evolution into the public main stream. We didn’t have to read Darwin’s book and enjoyed the almost novel-like presentations. Of course, it is out of date.
A great deal of what was in Nye’s book “Undeniable” was known to be wrong long before he published it.
Does he get a free pass for candy-coating bad science?
While this is not anywhere near my field of knowledge, I enjoy continuing to educate myself and learn at any age and much of what is being said here, apart from the specifics of the science, is applicable across all fields. We are all subject to being fed bad information and incorporating it into our thought process and foundational understandings. Sometimes tearing it down and rebuilding a solid foundation is in order.
Seems like we have a Creationism cockroach trying to pass himself off as a man of science. Such lack of ethics. Such dishonesty. Really, how do you live with yourself and your bullshit?
Just letting everyone here know that the person above is an anonymous person who was afraid to even use his email address privately on his blog comment, let alone publish his name.
Most comments like this are from anonymous cowards.
It looks like you’ve stirred up the Dawkinite ‘evolution did it’ crowd Mr Marshall.
It’s amusing see them get them get all offended, defensive and offensive when the beloved pseudo science they’ve assumed to be true is challenged. Good job and good luck.
I’m a post-Christian humanist (fine, I’m an atheist) who was once a devout Christian. I absolutely love science, and I try to keep as up-to-date as possible, but I also admit to not having the time or intelligence to read every issue of every peer-reviewed journal in every discipline. That’s why I find secular, pop-sci authors to be useful, although it’s hard for me to stomach the work of “New Atheists” because of their almost-militant atheist agendas. I also have enjoyed works by credible Christian authors and scientists. In general, I gravitate toward books and articles that take to task the BEST arguments offered by the other side(s). I haven’t read your book (is their an audiobook?), but I perused your blog, and you seem to be more in the vein of Francis Collins. Is that an accurate assessment?
Also, I came across your blog as a sponsored ad on Facebook, and even though I was intrigued enough to follow the link, I was immediately suspicious of your agenda. The introductory article seemed like a promotion for Scientology or something. Now, I can understand why you may not want to advertise your religious beliefs up front, but at the same time, being coy about your faith piqued my skepticism from the get-go. Even after reading your balanced and reasonable stance on Intelligent Design (and intelligent design), I remain wary of your motivations, because you still seem overly susceptible to confirmation bias. It feels like you use scientific evidence to validate the beliefs you already hold, rather than letting the scientific evidence guide you to your conclusions. Mind you, Dawkins and Co. also appear guilty of this, which is why I have hard time taking the New Atheists seriously. You alluded to previous, unsuccessful attempts to present your hypotheses from a purely secular perspective, so I’m genuinely curious about the extent to which you made your case without any religious bias, only to have it ignored or rejected by the scientific community. Can you elaborate on that?
Nathaniel,
All my cards are on the table. On my blog and in my book I explain exactly what my views are. I am transparent about my biases.
As I explain in Evolution 2.0 (which is also available on Audible audiobook) I resolved that I would follow the evidence wherever it led, even if it made me an atheist. I determined that as an engineer I would pursue the answers in a scientific manner. I have done so.
My approach is fairly simpatico with Francis Collins. However in his book he basically presents a neo-Darwinian view, which scientifically I believe falls far short of explaining the inner workings of evolution. On this site and more so in my book I articulate my take on evolution itself pretty thoroughly. In Evolution 2.0 I both praise Collins and also voice my disagreement on the technical side.
I don’t see any need to be wary of my motivations. I am a Christian and everybody knows that. I thought this inquiry might make me an atheist, but it didn’t. Rather it showed that huge, gaping, unanswered questions remain, that we don’t know the origin of life or origin of information, and that the neo-Darwinists tell you almost nothing useful about how evolution actually works, thus the emerging Extended synthesis.
I don’t believe one has to approach this from a religious angle. I think people should be able to discuss the science without fear that some religious person is going to pounce on them. I’m not being coy, I’m just not leading with religion. I did not start my inquiry by leading with religion. As I describe in my book, I led the charge with science. My #1 discovery came from what I already know about Ethernet, as an author of an Ethernet book for process control engineers.
I think we need a de-militarized zone (DMZ) where people can be open about their biases and then proceed to discuss the evidence and not be afraid of being vilified. All I ask here is that people be civil and forthright.
I have established a $3 million prize for Origin of Information at http://www.naturalcode.org and you can read an entire history of how my inquiry into “origin of information” has gone with every kind of audience you can imagine, both religious and secular. The comments and reactions are all public and comments are available for all to see. I cover this in Chapter 22-23 of Evolution 2.0. Also note the endorsements of my book by standard secular academic scientists, including the editor of International Review of Cell and Molecular Biology and a professor of biomathematics from King’s College London.
Great questions, thanks for asking. I’m sure a lot of other people have similar questions.
More creationist nonsense fighting for legitimacy. All arguments for creationism are nothing more than an effort to norm magic as an explanatory phenomena.
Yet another example of anonymous cowardice from a nameless faceless atheist, with no facts or evidence or even indication that he understands what the problem really is here.
Bill Nye the science lie’s religion is called climate change because like religion, he won’t allow the word; “proven” to be spoken, just; “real” but never “as real as the planet isn’t flat”. It’s been 35 years of “could be” a planet flattening end of days. So it wasn’t a crime for science to never say a threat to the planet was as real as it isn’t flat and as real as smoking causing cancer. Will they say it before it’s too late to say it?
Trump;
“If NASA can’t have absolute certainty for a threat to our children’s lives then it is not a real end of days and those responsible will be prosecuted for decades of needless panic including; news editors and consultants calling themselves scientists and of course; politicians as well.”
Cheap shots at the very scientist’s shoulders you sit on. Although incredibly interesting, your attitude is to be pitied.
Yet more I.D. nonsense.
This issue was also debated in a nature article in terms of niche construction:
http://www.nature.com/news/does-evolutionary-theory-need-a-rethink-1.16080
Richard Dawkin’s has been out of date since the day that he published the Selfish Gene. I admire his writing and his books were great enjoyment leading into my undergraduate. However, Sewall Wright, Rupert Riedl, Conrad Waddington, and even Richard Lewontin were very skeptical and some even published rebuttals of Dawkin’s in the peer-reviewed literature. Stephen J. Gould’s writings should have been the tombstone marker on Dawkin’s thesis, but for some reason this never caught traction. There is a grand divide between populist thinking in evolutionary biology and what is really going on in evolutionary peer-review. Here we are with an article in 1978 on epigenetics:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mae-Wan_Ho/publication/22628078_Beyond_neo-Darwinism-an_epigenetic_approach_to_evolution/links/0deec52875c870b1c9000000.pdf
Dawkin’s still didn’t get the memo. He put out this horrific paper:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ABIPH.0000036180.14904.96?LI=true
It was essentially a re-hash of what he has already said and he ignores the evidence. I have admired Dawkins and many of the other neo-Darwinian) players, but they need to modify their views in light of the evidence (which they claim to do). Interestingly, Charles Darwin would be more of a modern thinker in relation to his pangenesis theory, which started genetics and is really prescient thinking on the way that RNA intermixes with the proteome. Great article!
Fabulous! I posted your comment as a blog post: http://evo2.org/dawkins-obsolete/